Cheese and Pears

Archive for the ‘Biscuits’ Category

The Great Shortcrust Pastry Experiment

Posted on Apr 17, 2011 08:06:12 PM

I have wanted to do this for a long time and finally the time has come. I love sweet shortcrust pastry (pasta frolla in Italian FYI), but I hate to make it.
Why? Because any sweet shortcrust pastry recipes I’ve ever read always says that the most crucial thing is to use the butter straight from the fridge, the colder the better. For some shortcrust pastry Talibans, even the hands and the knife should be immersed in cold water.
The problem is (and this is why I hate to make shortcrust pastry), you need to rub the flour and the butter together with your fingertips, in order to get a crumbly mix. And the hands hurt, and that’s not funny!
So I decided to make this experiment. I took the Jaime Oliver shortcrust pastry from his cookbook Jamie’s Italy, I divided the ingredients in two and made two batches of cookies: one with the cold method, the other melting the butter in the microwave.

The visual result of this experiment is in the picture below. Here is what I did. Ingredients altogether:

125gr (4½oz) butter
100gr (3½oz icing sugar)
A small pinch of salt
255gr (9oz) plain flour, sifted
1 tsp lemon extract
2 large egg yolks
2 tbsp milk or water

For the short pastry recipe the cold way.
Dice the cold butter and put it in a bowl, add the flour and rub the two with your fingertips until you get a crumbly mixture
Now you can add the rest of the ingredients, and mix just enough to bring them together.
The dough you get should be solid enough to be shaped into a ball. Lightly dust it with flour wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge.

The recipe for shortcrust pastry the “melted” way goes as follows.
Add the butter to a bowl, melt it in the microwave, and add the rest of the ingredients. Bring them together, cover the bowl with cling film and put it in the fridge (it will be too sticky to form a ball).  Of course the half with the melted butter will have stay longer in the fridge.

Preheat the oven at 180ºC (356ºF), form flattened small balls with it and bake them for 20-25 minutes.

And now the moment of truth,This is the result, with the two types of short crust pastry cookies. On the left those with melted butter, on the right the cold method.

In spite of the same time in the oven, the ones with cold butter were slightly over-baked (the sugar was slightly caramelized), but other than that the taste was EXACTLY THE SAME.

So, unless you have a food mixer, this is how to make shortcrust pastry: melt the butter in the microwave and add the rest of the ingredients, just remember to work it as little as possible else the flour will develop gluten (THAT is important). The only advantage by using the recipe shortcrust pastry the cold way is that you will learn how to make the Italian gesture for “money”, but you don’t really need to rub flour and butter to do that.

EDIT: I brought these cookies at work for a second, third and fourth opinion. Both types were well received (thank you guys), but those made the cold way were more appreciated for the texture. My explanation is that by melting the butter the ingredients are mixed more evenly, whereas, the cold way, the shortcrust pastry remains more lumpy, and chewy when baked (which is what we expect from cookies, right?).

So here is my (temporary conclusion) on how to make short crust pastry: use the cold way for cookies, but the melted way for the base of shortcrust pastry tarts.